


Daydreams and Nightmares

by theLoyalRoyalGuard



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, Everyone Is Alive, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Queerplatonic Relationships, content warning bor gullet, sniperpilot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-18 12:11:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16994775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theLoyalRoyalGuard/pseuds/theLoyalRoyalGuard
Summary: Bodhi dwells on his growing relationship with Cassian, the nightmares that brought them here, and the sweet, small moments that dare to dream of healing each other.





	Daydreams and Nightmares

Bodhi knows he's dreaming, but he can't wake up. The milky eyes roll and blink at him and he shudders, recoils in terror. 

Bor gullet. 

The rough, squirming, boneless limbs slide over him. He can't breathe. 

One tends to lose one's mind. 

He's pleading, but they won't listen to him, they don't trust him. He's come all this way, risked everything, and they give him to this... to this thing... 

The little mouths caress his face, soft, almost tender, but with the arms wrapped around his chest, he's trapped. He'd tell them anything, now, but it doesn't matter. Saw Gerrera just watches. 

Something shakes his shoulder, hard, and Bodhi gasps awake flailing against the thin blanket that's tangled around him. Cassian looks down at him, that little worried line between his brows. His body is coiled taut, always ready to fight, but there's nothing here but the narrow bunk and the blanket and a nightmare. Even Cassian can't fight nightmares. 

He tries, though. He always manages to wake Bodhi just before the dream eats him alive. 

Cassian doesn't touch him after the shake. He learned fast not to touch him, especially his face and neck, when he wakes from these dreams. The first time, he was so gentle, stroking the sweat-damp hair back from Bodhi's eyes, and Bodhi melted down like a broken reactor. This morning, Cassian just pulls the blanket off him and gets out of bed. He talks while he gets dressed, while he makes caff, the sound of his voice grounding Bodhi in the present. In reality. 

Slowly, he starts to get his breathing back under control. The shaking stops. He sits up and Cassian brings him a steaming cup. The smell helps, too. Small things anchor him, keep him from spiraling back into the dark place the monster left him in. 

"Th-thanks," he says. "Were you saying anything important?"

Cassian shakes his head. "Not even a little bit."

Bodhi sips the caff scalding. It warms him up from the inside and some of the sick tension starts to ease. He sighs and Cassian looks up at him to make sure he's all right. That little fringe of dark hair falls in his eyes, and sometimes Bodhi tries to imagine him as a little boy with those wide dark eyes peeking from under his forelock. 

"I'm sorry," Bodhi says, because he can't stand the quiet and has to fill it with something. "For waking you up."

"You didn't." He sits in one of the austere metal chairs that, like the bunk, are barely comfortable. Somehow, he makes them look comfortable, slouching with his legs stretched in front of him, still-bare feet crossed at the ankle. "Besides, I'd rather be here to wake you up." 

Bodhi doesn't say he could sleep somewhere else, he's too grateful to be here. Too grateful not to be alone in the dark. They've had that talk before, and Cassian is the only one he's told his worst fear. That somehow bor gullet is still inside his head, and one night, Bodhi won't wake up in time. And then, when he finally does, he'll be empty again. Bor gullet lurks inside him, waiting to finish him off. 

But it was Cassian who brought him back the first time, and it's Cassian who's always here now. 

~ ~ ~

The others have bad dreams, too. Cassian of Scarif, Jyn dreams of Eadu. He knows because he heard her talking to Baze, the gruff gunner who intimidates Bodhi more than a little, though he'd trust him with his life. 

He knows because Cassian talks in his sleep in a jumble of Basic and Festian, and though he tries not to listen, he's caught pieces. He calls for K-2, or Jyn, mostly, and names Bodhi doesn't know.

Bodhi is the one who dreams of Jedha. Of the red stone city, and the darkness, flower of earth and fire that was his last sight of...

Of home. 

It was home, and now it's gone, and that's something he shares with Cassian that they never talk about. He's found, with Cassian, it's what left unsaid that's the most intimate. 

~ ~ ~

At first, Bodhi doesn't realize what's woken him. It's dark in Cassian's quarters, and for once he can't remember his own dreams at all. Then Cassian throws his head back against the pillow, the muscles of his neck standing out like cables, his hands flexing on the blanket. He doesn't make a sound, but his dark lashes flutter in obvious distress. 

It's no good to wake him. Unlike Bodhi, he'll wake himself. It's how he wakes that matters, so Bodhi curls close to him, one arm over his chest, one knee over his thigh. Usually, he's shy of being touched, but Cassian needs it, craves the comfort of contact. They find balance in what they need from each other. 

He knows when Cassian's awake because the rapid breathing under his hand goes steady. Back under control. 

"You're safe," he whispers into the dark. "You're not alone."

Cassian sighs, such a small, tired sound. Others think he's cold, that he feels nothing, but Bodhi knows better. Cassian feels everything. Like him. It's another reason they find comfort in each other. It's also why they used to spend so much time alone. 

This thing between them is new and neither of them really understand that. Bodhi takes it one day, one night, at a time. When Cassian is away, he spends a lot of time with the Guardians, and sometimes with Jyn. She's fierce and intense in a way that he finds overwhelming at times, and inspiring at others. He wishes he could be more like her. Ferocious and brave. 

He's only ever done two brave things in his life. 

Bravery has a higher price than he ever could have guessed. He wonders sometimes if he would have done those things if he'd known. If he'd have let Galen Erso convince him to take that message if he'd known what would happen. What it would cost him. 

With his head on Cassian's shoulder, he thinks it might have been worth it. 

"Cassian?"

"Mhm?"

"If you knew how things would turn out, would you do it all again?" 

Cassian's hand trails down his back. He never touches Bodhi's hair, and the light brush of his fingertips never passes Bodhi's waist. It's not like that with them, they don't even kiss. Bodhi thinks he would, if Cassian asked, but it's not necessary. Would it change them, if they did? Do they need to change? He doesn't think so. 

"All what?" Cassian asks after a pause. His accent is thick with sleep, but his eyes are open. "What we did, or before that?"

"All of it."

"...yes. All of it. I never had much choice. When your choices are to fight oppression or ignore it..."

Bodhi nods. He never ignored the occupation on Jedha, it was impossible to ignore, but the only way to survive was head-down, eyes-down, don't-make-trouble. It looks like ignoring from the outside. Especially when he became a pilot, but he had to, to survive. It was work, and it got him off Jedha for a while. Until he couldn't ignore it any more, until he decided to fight back in one small way that became another, and another. 

"Going to Scarif was the first time in a long time I made a choice that mattered," Cassian says, so softly. 

"That's how I feel about..." Jedha. Saw Gerrera. Scarif. 

The hand on his back goes still. Cassian nods. 

"I'd do it again, too," Bodhi says. "To get here. I used to dream of having a family again." He wonders if that's something else they share. Something they all share, and that's why they're still together. This makeshift family he named Rogue One. 

"Now, we do."


End file.
